


Chemical Reactions

by HarrisonHolmes2014



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Beatles Music, Dancing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I REGRET NOTHING, Molly's Taste in Music/Books is Basically Mine, Motown Music, Original Hooper-Holmes Child(ren), POV Molly Hooper, Parentlock, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Shakespeare Quotations, Sherlock is a Bit of a Romantic (!), Single Parent Molly Hooper, Songfic Characteristics, This is Called Self-Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2572649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarrisonHolmes2014/pseuds/HarrisonHolmes2014
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the two years since the fall, Molly Hooper has done her best to move on with life. But it's hard to let go of the past when a clever, curious young girl constantly reminds her of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemical Reactions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I'm new to this whole posting-writing-online thing. Please feel free to leave comments/constructive criticism!

Another gray, rain-laden Saturday. October in London, you’ve got to love it. I sit in my bedroom, accompanied only by my cat Toby, the sky’s whitewashed light streaming into my lap. The swift clicking of my laptop’s keys fills the room, brisk and sharp like the raindrops on my window. I have to answer Greg and Sally’s emails during naptime. Otherwise it doesn’t happen.

Idly my hand moves the cursor to the Google search button. I can’t resist looking it up, haven’t been able to since…well…that happened. To search is as pointless as trying to predict the end of the world, but still I look. _He’d _probably be able to tell me why I look, if he were here.__

But he’s not. 

_Nope, don’t do that, Molly. You promised yourself you wouldn't. It doesn’t change anything. _Instead, I type “Solved murder cases London October 2013” into Google search. Just as I’m about to click the magnifying glass in the search bar, I hear the telltale sound of an awake child. The staccato thumps of little feet come pouring out of the room across the hall. I close my laptop and go out to the kitchen, Toby trotting behind me.__

Even though it’s been two years, the sight of her still surprises me a bit. A little girl stands on a stepstool in front of the sink, her feet in tiny purple socks. Her hair, a mess of wild dark brown curls, falls as it usually does: all over the place, splaying out around her shoulders. She’s holding a cup of milk in one small hand and a cup of orange juice in the other.

Her name is Moira. I didn’t choose it for a particular reason; I just liked the way it sounded.

I go stand beside her. Toby leaps onto the counter next to her, purring. She doesn’t explicitly acknowledge my presence, but she smiles slightly. “What’re you doing, love?” I ask.

She stares intently at the two glasses, her eyes darting back and forth between them. “Experiment,” she says vaguely.

Two years old and she already knows words like that…it’s frightening sometimes. “Tell me about it?” I say.

Her reaction is priceless, as always. She grins smugly, stands up perfectly straight, and holds up the two cups. “Well, milk's white,” she says. “But look what it does.” Carefully, deliberately, she pours a bit of the juice into the milk. It turns a sick sort of orange-yellow. 

“Right,” I tell her. “And what’s that called again? We read about it in a book last week.”

She scratches Toby’s ears, trying and failing to hide a smile at my praise. “Chemical reaction?” she says, slowly wrapping her tongue around each syllable.

"Mmm-hmm." It’s odd: my heart both sinks and rises at her echoing. I love to see her curiosity and its usually entertaining results. Understanding that she hungers for knowledge, even at this young age, is incredible. But every time she shows me a new experiment or asks me questions, I hear another voice speaking beneath her childish treble. A rich, warm baritone that would drive any woman out of her depth…

_If I wasn’t everything that you think I am – that I think I am – would you still want to help me? ___

Yes.

Almost unconsciously, I lay my left hand on the counter, and the diamond ring on it sparkles as it passes under the light. I really shouldn’t be letting Sherlock's voice play back in my head. Not anymore. I push it from my thoughts, which is hard. I gently take the empty orange juice cup from Moira. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think it’s time for a certain young lady to feed the cat and help set the table.” I pour the juice-milk mixture down the drain, and Moira and Toby both jump from their perches on the stepstool and counter. “It’s pasta tonight. Your favourite.”

Moira says to Toby, “Time for supper!” and darts to the pantry, the cat at her heels. Before she goes, she gives me a fleeting smile. Even in that swift look, her eyes make my heart freeze. Their clear blue-gray, sparkling from under long black eyelashes, shifts abruptly to gold-flecked green as the light hits them directly.

Guilt stabs at my chest when I feel it. But Moira’s "kaleidoscope eyes," as she calls them, are only slightly distorted reflections of Sherlock's. And anger, irrational but undeniable, sears my throat when I think about it. I try to reason my fury away; it’s not like he could’ve phoned me or dropped an email. But Moira could’ve had a whole family if the circumstances hadn’t prevented it. It’s for her, not myself, that I burn with rage at his absence.

My daughter’s eyes should bring me only joy. But they haunt me too.  
______________

I can feel Sherlock's blue-gray eyes on me, burning the back of my neck. My hands shake as I search for the key to my flat, and I pray he won’t notice, even though that hope is futile. _He’ll be safe here, _I tell myself. No one thinks I mean anything to him (and I don’t, not in that way), so no one will ever guess he’s in my house. Simple._ This is probably the only safe place left for him in England._

But that doesn’t mean it’s not awkward.

I let him in. His eyes dart around the sitting-room, taking in the bursting bookshelves, the telly, the faded red sofa my mum gave me when I bought my first flat after university. Toby instantly runs out of the bedroom like normal, but he doesn’t come to me. He goes to Sherlock. Purring, he twines himself around the fugitive’s legs.

Toby normally doesn’t do that. He doesn’t like many people. I mention this, speaking at last, and a grin crosses Sherlock’s face. He reaches down and scratches Toby’s ears. "He recognizes a kindred spirit," he says.

Sherlock takes off his scarf and coat, and I see red spots of fake blood dotting his white shirt before I look away. As I set my purse on the couch, I remember the terror, the suspense, as he carried out the plan we’d made and I waited inside, pretending nothing was happening. Hiding my fear was the hardest act I’ve ever had to pull off. I knew perfectly well he’d be fine, but I couldn’t help thinking what might happen if something went wrong. Luckily nothing did.

I didn’t see how John reacted. I’m glad of it; I suspect it wasn’t pretty.

I turn around. Sherlock’s still standing by the coat rack behind the door, his back to me. His dark hair is stained with fake blood, I can see where it’s dried into stiff chunks. Before I can look away, he turns and our eyes meet, and I watch as the gray gives way to green in the sunlight. Neither of us speaks.

Even if there were anything to be said, I wouldn’t know where to begin.  
______________

Moira sits opposite me, chasing shell pasta across her plate with her fork. Already half of the food is gone, sauce splattered all over her face. “It’s good, Mummy,” she mumbles through a mouthful of Italian sausage.

_Mummy. _I’m still adjusting to hearing someone call me that, but I like it. I smile. “Thanks, love.” We eat in silence for a moment.__

“Tom’s coming over again for supper later this week,” I tell Moira.

Her eyes fly to the ceiling and she sighs. “I don’t like him. He wants me to call him Daddy.”

I glance down at my ring. “Maybe you should,” I suggest gently. “After all, you know I’m marrying him.”

Moira shakes her head. “I won't. He’s not my dad,” she says.

Her statement is so firm, so certain. I watch her as she slides down from the copy of _The Riverside Shakespeare, _placed on her chair so that she can see over the tabletop. As she carries her cleaned plate to the kitchen, I realize she’s almost a third as tall as I am. She certainly didn’t get that height from me. I follow her.__

In the kitchen, she scrambles onto a stepstool in front of the sink. The fluorescent bulb’s glow makes dark shadows on her face, bringing out the height and sharpness of her cheekbones. She turns on warm water and runs her plate under it, humming the opening bars of Beethoven’s _Moonlight _sonata as she washes her plate. I should get her involved in music lessons soon. Whenever she’s not reading or doing experiments, she’s singing or humming.__

“In a way, my marrying Tom does make him your dad,” I point out. “He’ll be here to help me keep an eye on you. That’s part of a dad’s job.”

Moira stops humming and looks straight at me. It’s a glance I’ve felt before: penetrating, piercing, as if she can see into my soul. It’s a reminder that I can’t hide much from her. “But he’s not my dad, and you don’t think so either. You look sad when he asks me to call him Daddy.”

With the grace of a cat, she jumps from the stool. She pulls a book of Irish myths and legends from the bookshelf. She can’t exactly read fluently yet, but she likes to look at things and practice. She especially loves stories about Ireland, mainly because her name’s Irish.

After she was born, I Googled the name Moira. It means “bitter.” I am about the fact that she doesn’t know her father, but there’s nothing I can do about that.  
______________

I give Sherlock pasta on the first night. I’m not Italian, but it’s really one of the best comfort foods out there, and I can make a mean sauce. At his request, I let him watch the sauce-making. I think it’s more out of interest in the process, in the mixing of ingredients, than a desire to help me. As I throw spices, chopped garlic, Italian sausage and tomatoes into the pot, he asks me how I know when it’s time for everything to go in. I tell him if I know what chemical reactions are going to happen between different ingredients, I can predict when the time is right.

We sit opposite each other at the table, the steaming plates of red-soaked spaghetti in front of us. We still haven’t talked much, but Toby’s followed Sherlock around since the moment he stepped in the house. He doesn’t seem to mind.

He picks up his fork and nudges the spaghetti around, but doesn’t eat. I guess I shouldn’t have made spaghetti, given what he just faked doing. Now that I think about it, the tangled noodles in the sauce look unnervingly like a brain covered in blood.

Or maybe he just isn’t hungry.

About halfway through my own plate, I get tired of the constant silence. So, I ask Sherlock what he’ll do next. He glares at me as if I’m stupid and asks me if I really think he has a plan. I snap back that I don’t know and stab a piece of sausage with my fork. "I never know what you have hidden in that brain of yours," I tell him.

"I want to go to the funeral," he says through a mouthful of spaghetti. He’s decided to eat at last. "The chance to attend one’s own burial comes along so rarely. I’d be a fool to pass up such a brilliant opportunity as this."

"Good luck pulling that off. You’re supposed to be _in _the coffin."__

He shrugs. "I’ll watch from behind a tree or something."

As I take my plate to the kitchen, I remind him that I’m at risk as well. "If someone finds out I registered a body as you knowing it wasn’t you, there goes my job," I call over the sound of the tap. He follows me, bringing in his own plate. Toby trots in after him and sits at our feet. "Go to the funeral if you want. But I’m putting my neck on the line for you, Sherlock. The least you could do in return is not get caught."

"I won’t."

I try to take the plate, but Sherlock won’t let it go. He looks directly at me, and yet again I get that uncomfortable feeling of being X-rayed by his eyes. Like he can see things that other people can’t, things I keep hidden inside me. He’s standing awfully close; is it possible to like and not like it at the same time?

"I can be discreet when it’s called for," he says quietly. "It’s a gift not everyone has."

My insides don’t exactly burn, but they simmer a bit. Narrowing my eyes, I yank the plate from his long hand. I turn my back on him and scrub leftover sauce off of the china. The sauce looks even more like blood now that it’s mixed with the water. Though I’m determinedly not looking at him, I see him pause in the doorway with my peripheral vision. His next words shock me so much that I nearly drop the plate:

"I’m lucky to have someone on my side who has that gift."  
______________

Moira is my alarm clock. Usually she’s up at seven every morning, even on a Sunday. I can expect her to come charging into my bedroom and bouncing onto the mattress at 7:10. It’s nice not having to wake up to a grinding electronic beep every morning.

But today, Moira doesn’t come in. When I glance at the clock upon waking, it’s a quarter to eight. Worried, I throw on my dressing-gown and walk down the hall to her room.

Sunlight streams from the window onto the bed, making the purple and gold stripes on the comforter shine. Moira’s curled under it, still fast asleep, her teddy bear just visible in the crook of her arm. Her hair is splayed out over the pillow and twisted into knots in several places. Those tangles will be a nightmare to undo.

As I enter the room to wake her, I see something else: a book, lying upside-down among the covers. Her lateness is explained in a moment. This time it’s Shakespeare, my copy of _Twelfth Night _from my first-year university literature course.__

Gently I tap the sleeping girl on the shoulder. “Moira,” I call softly. “Time to get up.”

Her eyes drift open, turning golden-green with the morning sunlight, and she blinks sleep out of them. Slowly, she sits up. The covers rustle, and Toby’s grey-striped face pokes out from under them. “I was reading,” she yawns.

“I see.” I can’t help smiling. She’s stayed up late to read before, but I don’t mind. I sit next to her on the bed and pick up the little book. It’s open on “O Mistress Mine,” one of the play’s many songs.

“How do you like the song?” I ask Moira.

She shrugs. “Can’t read it all,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“Do you want me to read it to you?” I ask.

All signs of drowsiness instantly fly from Moira’s face. She sits up straight in bed, her eyes shining. She loves reading with me. “Yes, please,” she exclaims.

Beaming, I look down at the words. They flow as effortlessly from my tongue as they did in class:

“O mistress mine, where are you roaming?  
O, stay and hear, your true-love’s coming,  
That can sing both high and low.  
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;  
Journeys end in lovers meeting,  
Every wise man’s son doth know.” 

When I finish reading, Moira claps delightedly, her face aglow with happiness. Then, she asks me, “What did that mean? ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting?’” The line takes a few tries to get out of her mouth, but she gets there in the end.

I think for a minute. All of a sudden, pain shoots through my chest, as if someone’s wringing my heart out like a wet towel. Trying to keep my voice from shaking, I tell her, “It means that no matter how far away you go, or how long you’re gone, someone you love will always be there when you come back.”

I say it like I think it’s true. What I don’t tell her is that, sometimes, you don’t know if that someone will come back at all. Or that even if they do, you might not always be waiting for them. I can’t admit to her that this is my situation. Destroying her innocence, her child’s faith that everything in life works out fine, so soon would break my heart. And probably hers too; I can’t do that to her.

Heartbreak is just chemicals reacting in your brain, but knowing that doesn’t make the pain any better.  
______________

On the second day, when I come back to my flat after work, I find it completely trashed. All the books I own lie scattered on the floor and the red sofa. I can just barely see Sherlock lying on the sofa, jacket and shoes off, buried underneath a colorful mountain of books. My copies of _The Handmaid’s Tale, Oliver Twist, Bridget Jones’ Diary, _and_ Over Nine Waves: A Book of Irish Legends_ are among them. Toby lies sleeping on his chest, and he’s balancing another book on the cat’s back; I can’t see the title from the doorway.

Furious, I stride forward, throwing my coat and purse on the floor on top of the Harry Potter books. I demand to know what my entire book collection is doing on the floor. Not even taking his eyes off of the volume in his hands, he says, "Bored."

"Bored. That's your excuse for ripping apart my bookshelves?" I snarl.

"I already tried experimenting. Didn’t work. I knew what would happen."

"What?" I go to the kitchen and step into a nightmare. Half a dozen pots lie scattered around the counter, odd mixtures of condiments oozing over their edges: ketchup and olive oil, orange juice and pickle juice, broiled milk. Judging from the scorch marks on one pot, he tried to light something on fire.

I storm back out to the sitting-room. "Great work," I growl. "Really great work. You’ve ruined the kitchen too. Do you not have any sense of boundaries?"

"Not when I’m bored," Sherlock says. I give him a skeptical look, and his face darkens. "You don’t understand," he snaps, sharply closing the book he’s holding. "You’ll never understand. That plain, boring little mind of yours is always quiet, always peaceful."

"How would you know that?"

He ignores this. "My mind’s like a constantly running engine," he says, placing his fingertips on his temples. "If I don’t stimulate it, it’ll turn on me and drive me mad."

"Well, if you’re looking for stimulation, you can help me clean up the mess you made in my kitchen."

Sherlock doesn’t acknowledge my words. "Since I can’t turn to my work for stimulation right now, your books will have to suffice. Most of them didn’t help. Thank God I found your Shakespeare paperbacks." He holds up the book he’s reading: _Othello. ___

I had no idea he liked Shakespeare. Really, I didn’t know he read much at all. I tell him so, and he smiles slightly. "You were under the impression that I didn’t care," he says slyly, flipping back to his page in the book. He’s right, but I don’t acknowledge it. The last thing he needs is for another person to confirm his brilliance. His ego’s already the size of Parliament.

"Move over," I tell him. He sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes, but extricates his long legs from the pile of books anyway. Mewing in displeasure at the movement, Toby leaps to the floor and trots out of the room. I sit on the end of the couch, digging a gap in the mass of books, and ask him why he enjoys Shakespeare.

"This," he says. He holds out the book. It’s open on “Sing All A Green Willow,” the one song in the play. I smile; he doesn’t need to say any more. He does anyway.

"It’s poetry," he tells me. "Crime may be my area of expertise, but it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the world’s beauty too. Listen to this."

Clearing his throat, he reads. His voice’s deep, warm tones suit the sad words perfectly.

"The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree,  
Sing all a green willow;  
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,  
Sing willow, willow, willow."

I remember reading this to the rest of my first-year university literature class. Unable to resist, I recite the next lines from memory along with him.

"The fresh streams ran by her and murmured her moans;  
Sing willow, willow, willow;  
Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones –  
Sing willow, willow, willow."

My voice quivers with emotion. Sherlock must hear it, because he stops speaking. Laying the book on his chest, he raises his head a bit to look at me. "You know the words off the top of your head. Impressive." 

"I’ve always loved that song."

He smiles and turns his gaze back to the ceiling. Closing his eyes, he asks why. Shards of memory flash through my mind, one after another, like a sped-up film. His tall form bent over a microscope, purple-gray shadows circling his eyes after another long night at the lab. The feeling of his curly hair brushing my cheek as he kissed it in apology at Christmas. My heart stopping every time he walks into a room.

The voice in my head telling me to look anywhere but at Sherlock Holmes' dark brown curls, his perfectly chiseled face, the kaleidoscope eyes that see everything except me…I listen to the voice and look away. "I’ve known how the girl in the song feels," I say quietly.

For once he doesn’t say anything.  
______________

Early in the afternoon, I tie my hair up under a bandana and take off my engagement ring. The sitting-room needs dusting, and I don’t want either my hair or the ring getting in the way. I put my iPod on its speaker and pull up my “Motown Favorites” list. Aside from its pumping bass lines that can get me moving on any day, I enjoy the music’s messages. The songs show that life is never a straight line, particularly when love (or something like it) is in the picture.

Moira shouldn’t be able to hear me, she’s in the kitchen mixing things up again, but she has a magic power to sense when something’s going on. She comes running out to the sitting-room, her still-tangled hair flying and Toby following her. She’s carrying a little bowl of mashed olives stirred into some thick white material. From the smell, I can tell it’s a blend of dish soap and laundry detergent. I decide I don’t want to know.

“What are you doing, Mummy?” she asks breathlessly.

“Getting ready to clean. Would you like to keep me company?”

She nods and flops onto the sofa, carefully setting the experiment on the coffee table. I press play, and the smooth, groovy keyboard intro of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” curls from the speakers. I swipe the feather duster along the bookshelf and coffee table in time to the beat, sending translucent swirls of dust into the air. It’s not long before I start singing, and Moira sings too. She knows every word, which is impressive for a two-year-old.

I know I’ll only get through half of the dusting before Moira can’t help herself. When the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” plays, she leaps from the sofa. Toby lets out a good-natured growl and stalks out of the room, and Moira starts to dance. She shakes her dark mane, beaming and belting at the top of her little lungs: _“You can’t hurry love / No, you just have to wait / She said love don’t come easy / It’s a game of give and take / You can’t hurry love / No, you just have to wait / You’ve got to just give it time / No matter how long it takes.” ___

She hears the words, but doesn’t understand their meaning or how they apply to us. She’s only two, how could she understand? Part of me would give anything to share that obliviousness. The hand holding the feather duster shakes a bit as fury pumps through me once more. What did my beautiful, sweet daughter ever do to deserve this, a lack of a whole family?

_Stop it, Molly. You’re trying not to think about it like that. _I watch her dancing, knowing it’ll force these melancholy thoughts from my mind. She gives a particularly large spin, loses her balance, and falls onto the floor. But she’s not hurt: in fact, she starts giggling, and the laughter lights up her entire face. Grinning, I toss the feather duster aside and help her up. Still holding her small hands, I swing her around in time to the music, singing along with her.__

The song shifts. A very familiar bass line pumps out steadily from the speakers, and Moira gasps. “It’s my song!” she cries, her eyes shining.

It really is her song: I’ve sung it to her as a lullaby virtually from the moment I brought her home from the hospital. I laugh and scoop her up into my arms, holding her right hand in a ballroom dance position. I sing the first line to her, along with the Temptations’ easy harmonies. _“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day / When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May / I guess you’d say / What can make me feel this way…” ___

She giggles again, and I rub noses with her. My heart warms at the feeling, at the sound of her laughter. _“My girl,” _I sing.__

I once heard Sherlock say that love was nothing more than chemicals, and I agreed. But that was before I had her.  
_____________

It’s the third and last night. Sherlock's brother will pick him up early tomorrow morning and drive him outside of London. He’ll drop him off somewhere isolated, quiet, where nobody will see him. Then, he’ll be off to...well, no one knows. Not even him, and that makes him uncomfortable. He tries to hide it, talking cheerily about how much of the world he might see, but I know better. When he thinks I’m not paying attention, the mask drops, and his eyes look like my old cat’s when I took her to be put down: dark with fear and dull with resignation to the worst.

There’s not much I can do to help Sherlock feel better about it all, but at least I can try. After supper that night, both of us sit on the couch, reading quietly with Toby between us. He’s at my Shakespeare books again, _Macbeth _this time. When I see him set the book down and stretch, I ask him if he’d like me to put on music.__

He gives me a quizzical look, his head tilted slightly to the side like a puppy. "Music?"

"Sure. It helps soothe nerves."

"I’m not nervous."

"And I’m not stupid, Sherlock. I can tell when you’re lying."

I didn’t mean for it to come out so baldly, but it did. He hesitates, and for a moment his brow furrows in an affronted sort of way. But then he smiles. "You’re right," he tells me. "You’re not stupid."

Well. That’s one of the closest things to a compliment he’s ever paid me. "You don’t know what’s going to happen, and that would terrify anyone," I say. "You need some music."

He sighs, an admission of defeat. "All right," he says. "What’ve you got?"

"Everything," I tell him. I get up and fetch the iPod from my room, and I set it up on the coffee table. "I’ve got Adele, Mozart, Beethoven, disco, Motown, the Beatles, Billy Joel…"

He says anything will do, as long as it’s calming. So, I pull up my ballads playlist. The Temptations are the first artist to come up: the gentle, steady bass line and finger snaps that open “My Girl” weave a net of sound around us. We sit and listen as song after song plays softly, taking turns petting the cat. Once or twice, we go for a pet at the same time and my hand accidentally brushes his.

Some time later, Sherlock finally says something. "I wanted to ask you…what would you like in return for this?"

I ask him what he means, and he looks straight at me. There’s that X-ray feeling again. But this time, it’s not uncomfortable. This time, it’s accompanied by an excited fluttering in my stomach. I know it’s only a chemical reaction in my head, but damn, is it a strong one. I do my best to look back and ignore the feeling.

"I’ve never treated you all that well," he says. Shocked, I automatically open my mouth to refute the statement. But he shakes his head, and I can’t help noticing the way his dark curls bounce with the movement. "No, don’t deny it. You know it’s true." 

He takes a deep breath. It may just be a trick of the light, but…is he blushing? He goes on before I can figure that out. "You didn’t have to help me. Given how I’ve treated you in the past, I expected you not to. But you did, and I wouldn’t be sitting here without you."

Being struck by lighting must feel something like this: my brain’s buzzing. Aside from telling me he needed me before the jump, Sherlock’s never said anything remotely like this to me. All I can manage is thank you.

A small smile crosses his face. "So, if there’s anything I can do in return for you, anything that might even begin to repay you for what you’ve done…"

"You don’t have to repay me."

"I want to. Just name it, and if I can give it to you before I go, I will."

I think for a moment. The last song on the playlist comes on, the wavelike, tender keyboard intro to Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are.”

I ask him if he likes to dance. At first, he grins in a bemused sort of way, as if he wasn’t expecting that. But then the grin turns sheepish. Yep, I’m not seeing things: he’s definitely turning red now.

"Yes. I didn’t know you did too."

I nod. "You could give me a dance if you want to thank me," I say, stammering a bit. I can feel my own face getting hot. I try to think of icebergs to stop the blood rushing to my cheeks, but with him sitting this close, it doesn’t work. 

Finally, he smiles. "All right," he says. He offers his hand, and I notice my fingers shaking as I take it. I start the song over, and we step out past the coffee table into the bit of space between here and the kitchen table. He puts an arm around my waist, making my heart jump _(come on, Molly, keep it together), _and off we go. The song is slow, so the dance is nothing fancy, but he’s a good partner all the same. I know because I can read his movements: gentle pressure in my hand to indicate a turn, a shift of the arm around my waist to signal a change in step. I try not to listen too closely to the song’s words, especially the second verse:__

_Don’t go trying some new fashion / Don’t change the color of your hair / You’ve always had my unspoken passion / Although I might not seem to care / I don’t want clever conversation / I never want to work that hard / I just want someone that I can talk to / I want you just the way you are. ___

As the song fades, Sherlock gradually lets go of me. I start to turn away, but he asks me to wait. I turn back, and I look up at him. He’s way too close; I can see every tiny speck of gold in his irises. After a moment of silence, a quiet that trembles and shimmers like a raindrop on a leaf, he bends down and his lips brush my cheek.

"Thank you for the dance," he tells me.

I observe what my brain is doing to the rest of me with a surprisingly clear head. My head whirls as if it’s just been hit with a lead pipe, and my knees seem to have turned into gelatin, they’re shaking so much. The spot on my face where he kissed me feels like it’s burning. Suddenly, a wonder drifts to the front of my mind: how on earth am I supposed to respond to that?

Some part of my brain, instinct I suppose, comes up with an answer. "Good try, but you did that wrong."

He smiles. "Can you show me how to do it right, then?"

That destroys whatever self-restraint I have left. I throw my arms around Sherlock's neck, jumping a little because he’s so tall, and the impact sends us staggering backwards a bit. Our lips meet; his are warm and deliciously soft. He’s almost shy at first, but then he responds: his hands slide to my hips, bringing me closer to him. I feel them shift from my hips to my back and my shoulders, and they leave a tingling trail under my skin behind them. As our kiss goes on, his mouth only presses more fiercely against mine.

I don’t want to end it, but I’m the one who does. I let Sherlock go, and he half-collapses against the wall, running one long hand through his hair. I have to lean on a chair myself: I’m a bit dizzy. There’s silence, aside from our heavy breathing. When he looks up at me, his blue-gray eyes burn with a hunger I’ve never seen in them before. I’m not the only one experiencing a serious chemical reaction here.

He doesn’t have to speak: I know what both of us want. I take his hand and lead him down the hall to my room.  
_____________

After supper that night, Moira doesn’t go to her bedroom like she normally does. When I come out of the kitchen, I see her in the sitting-room, digging through a basket of magazines and papers next to the sofa. “What’re you looking for, love?” I ask.

“I want to read,” she says vaguely, her eyes still on the basket.

I smile. “Well, I’m going back to my room to do some work,” I tell her. “Come find me if you need anything.”

“Okay.” As I leave, I glance back at her. She looks almost like a little adult, with her lips pursed in a slight frown and her brow furrowed with concentration. I know better than to offer help. She tunes out the world when she’s focused, so it’s best to leave her to it. I make myself comfortable in my room, opening my email inbox to see if there’s anything important in there.

At last, I hear a pause in the brisk ruffling of paper. There’s a long silence, broken only by the occasional whisper of pages turning. She’s evidently found something interesting. I smile, counting the seconds before she comes to show me what she’s discovered.

“Mummy?” Moira calls. Instantly I know something’s wrong. Her voice has a tentative note in it, which I don’t usually hear. Her footsteps echo in the hall, but she’s walking, slowly, uncertainly. Normally she runs. Dear God, I hope she hasn’t found some advert with a naked man in it. I’m not feeling up to answering those questions right now.

Moira comes into my room, carrying a copy of the _Guardian. _It’s a front page, and it’s so old that its edges are yellowing. Her eyes are wide with shock, and her face is slightly pale. “What is it?” I ask her gently.__

She looks at me, and her small face whitens a bit further. However, her mouth is straightened and her dark eyebrows contracted. It’s the look she gets whenever she wants to get to the bottom of something. She climbs onto the bed and lays the front page across my lap.

It’s not a naked man advert; it’s worse. A face I know extremely well stares up at me, a thin face with high, finely carved cheekbones, wild dark brown curls, and piercing blue-gray eyes. A light gray, frankly ridiculous detective hat perches on top of the hair. Beside this photograph is a second shot of the same man lying on the pavement, a reddish-black puddle of blood all around his head and trickling down his pale cheeks. The headline, dated January 9th, 2011, reads, “Suicide of Fake Genius: Detective Sherlock Holmes Takes His Own Life.”

Something inside my stomach falls out, leaving a sinkhole that I’m trying my hardest not to fall into. Numbly, I pick up the newspaper page and stare at it. Sherlock’s face shakes along with my fingers, making a crisp rustling noise like falling leaves. I can’t look at Moira, I don’t want to; I’m scared of seeing anger in her eyes, anger that I didn’t tell her.

Finally I tear my gaze away from the paper and find the courage to look at my daughter. She merely looks back. Her face is still white with shock, but is otherwise devoid of any emotion, even the anger I feared. “That's my dad,” she says simply.

There’s nothing else I can say: “Yes, it is.”  
______________

I’ll give you the short version: things happened.

The next morning is definitely awkward. When Sherlock’s brother Mycroft arrives, his eyebrows shoot up towards his receding hairline as he looks us over. He knows, or at least suspects, what we did, and I try not to blush. "I’ll give you a moment to…say goodbye," he says. That dramatic pause only serves to rub in the fact that he knows.

After Mycroft leaves, Sherlock turns to me. In the moment before one of us speaks, I mentally review everything that happened last night, every last sensation. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience those things with him again, so I’m determined to burn them into my memory forever. I remember his hands shaking the first time he touched me, his rich, deep voice murmuring my name. I remember holding him after all was said and done, letting his dark hair fall smoothly between my fingers and avoiding the words I burned to say. I told myself that “I love you” is just a way of describing a simple chemical reaction in your brain. Thinking about it that way would make it easier to not get attached, which would make it easier to say goodbye later.

At least, that’s what I thought. I guess I was wrong; this doesn’t feel any easier.

I wish I could think of something beautiful and romantic to say to him, but that doesn’t happen. All I come up with is "Good luck." He thanks me, and for a minute he seems to hang on the edge of speech. I wait, wondering what else is left to say.

Then he smiles a bit. Almost shyly, he takes my hand and squeezes it slightly. "And thank you for everything, Molly Hooper."

Mycroft comes back into the room, beckoning with his head. Sherlock drops my hand, and the two brothers leave the flat. As I watch them through the window, Sherlock looks back. I give him a sad smile, one that he returns. Then he gets in the car and they drive off. My heart’s going with him, being torn from my body and dragged through London behind the car. I can tell from the ripping, searing pain in my chest. I turn from the window and go to feed the cat, trying to convince myself that the pain is only a chemical reaction.

I don’t hear from Sherlock again. It’s to be expected, given that he has to pretend he’s dead, but still…after what we went through, it’s difficult.

A month later, I skip a period and start vomiting every morning. I don’t need a doctor to tell me what that means. To my own surprise, I’m not excited or scared or much of anything, just confused. I can’t figure out how it happened; we weren’t stupid about it. All I can think is that must’ve been the factory reject condom.

Anyway, I debate getting an abortion, but I get my first scan before I decide. A greyish-green blob of fuzzy lines flickers on the screen, looking more like a cross between a jelly bean and an alien than a human. That’s when it really hits me: I’m looking at my own child. In an instant, I know I could never go through with an abortion. Not now that I’ve seen it, this thing that’s my son or my daughter.

As if to confirm my decision, I found out later that the name Moira means “bitter,” but it also means “wanted child.”  
_____________

Moira doesn’t really react to my affirmation that she’s looking at her father. She just sort of stares at the photographs of Sherlock for a while, her brow furrowed slightly. Finally, I find my voice and ask her, “How’d you work it out?”

"The eyes. They change colors like mine. They're blue in the first picture and green in the other one."

I smile in spite of myself. Even John noticed that similarity, the first night in the hospital room. “You’re good,” I tell her.

“So my dad’s dead.”

_Huh boy. _“Well, not exactly,” I say.__

“How's that?” she says. I nearly laugh at the exasperated note in her voice. Sometimes she echoes Sherlock so closely it’s almost funny.

“That blood is fake,” I answer. “He never actually died.” When her eyebrows contract in even greater confusion, I explain. “He was in trouble, and the only way for him to get out of it was to pretend he was dead,” I say. “I helped a bit.”

“Really?” she says, her eyes wide.

I nod. “After he faked dying, he stayed here for a few days. Nobody knew except for me and his brother, your uncle Mycroft.”

“So why isn’t he here?” she asks.

My throat tightens. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to explain this part so soon. “He couldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“There were still bad people here who wanted to hurt him. If he’d stayed, they might’ve found out he wasn’t really dead and done something to him. Or to someone else he cared about.”

“Like you?” Moira says. She’s grasping this remarkably well. She looks back at the old newspaper; it’s almost as if she can’t keep her eyes off of his face. She says quietly, slowly, “But if he’d stayed, he would’ve met me.” It’s the most complicated sentence she’s ever said.

I hug her, breathing in the warm smell of her hair, of her favorite strawberry shampoo. My voice shakes, even though I try not to let it. “Yes, there is that.”

Moira lets go first. Her thin face, so like Sherlock’s, blurs in my vision a bit as I look at her. “It’s okay, Mummy,” she says. “He'll come back, right?”

I wish I could say yes. But the fact remains that I have no idea what’s happened to Sherlock. He might very well have died in the two years between the fall and now. There’s no way for me to know. And if there were, would I really want to?

Plus, even if he did come back, I still have to remember the engagement ring on my hand. And what that means. So, I’m honest with her:

“I don’t know, Moira,” I tell her, holding her close again.

She doesn’t answer. She just lets me hold her, and I stroke her hair, watching the curls fall lightly between my fingers. A long time passes before the silence is abruptly shattered: the metallic _tap, tap _of our front door knocker rings through the flat.__

“I’ll get it,” Moira says, releasing me at last. She slips off of the bed, her dark brown curls bouncing playfully. As she leaves, she looks back and gives me a smile, a bright twinkle in her blue-gray eyes. I remember talking with her about chemical reactions, giving her a term for the mixing of substances. She doesn’t yet know about the ones that happen inside you, the ones responsible for love. But when she does learn about them, I’ll tell her that the chemical reactions I feel for her are the best kind.

I take a deep breath, willing myself to get it together, and listen as Moira opens the door.


End file.
